Thursday, May 12, 2016

Joe's Loose Tooth

Joe was growing up. Last year he was 5, now he's
6, and soon (very soon, in fact!) he will be 7. One way a person could
tell that Joe was growing up was looking at the amount of teeth remaining in
his smile. Every few months the number would get smaller. The smile
would still be as big and bright as ever, but there just weren't that many
teeth in there to twinkle and sparkle.

"I guess it's a part of growing up," Joe
said to himself one day. With so many teeth missing, Joe decided that
eating had become a problem. He went to his mom and asked her to buy him
a blender.

"What do you need a blender for?"

"Well, I don't have enough teeth to enjoy carrots
and cauliflower and all of those crunchy things I loved to crunch."
Just the thought of it made him break down. "I'm afraid I may
never get to crunch another crunch again!" And with that, Joe
crawled up into a little ball on the floor next to his mom's feet, and had a
little cry.

"Oh, Joe. Don't you know that you will get
bigger and better teeth?" His mom explained.

"Huh?!"

"You've lost your baby teeth, and soon your adult
teeth will grow in, allowing you to crunch and munch even more. Even as
much as your Dad could crunch!"

Joe's Dad was a master cruncher. He crunched any
vegetable. Go ahead, name one vegetable.

Onions? That's too easy!

Carrots? Not a problem!

Rutabagas? In his sleep!

Joe's Dad had walked into the room. Joe didn't
know why, but lately his Dad looked different somehow. He thought about
it for a moment and realized that his Dad had a lot of new things to wear.
He noticed his Dad's sparkly new watch that he bought a few months ago,
and now he saw a shiny new necklace hanging from his neck. In fact... New
suit, new tie, new hat, new socks, new moustache, new fingernail polish, new
glasses, new everything. Joe's dad was fannnncy!

"Hey Champ! Any loose teeth today?"

He would always ask him that, and now that he had time
think about it, with all of the new clothes and jewellery, Joe became a little
suspicious.

"Yeah, this one in the front." Joe
replied as he wiggled said tooth back and forth with his tongue.

"Sweeeet doggie!" His Dad yelped, as
he jumped up in the air and slapped his knee. "I'll go fetch the
string."

Soon enough, Dad was back with a spool of string, and
faster than you could say 'Hot sauce on a mean boss' and without even one
little ouch, Joe's tooth was yanked out.

His Dad picked up the tooth and held it up to the
light. He pulled out a magnifying glass to examine it with.

"Oh, yeah. This little number is going to
fetch me quite a pretty penny."

"What do ya' mean, Dad?"

He must have forgot that Joe was standing right there,
for when he turned to answer Joe he had a look that seemed to indicate that he
really didn't want to answer Joe's question. In fact, the next moment he
acted like Joe didn't even ask a question at all.

"Um, uh... I really must be going. I have
an appointment with my fashion consultant."

Joe knew that he himself was the one to profit from
this tooth business. And before his mother told him that he would get new
teeth to replace the old ones, Joe didn't think it much of a profit at all to
trade all his teeth just for a few bucks. He was relieved to know that he
would be getting adult ones to replace them.

For each pulled tooth, a strange and mysterious
creature named Tooth Fairy would come into his room at night and, in exchange
for the old tooth, give him a shinny Toonie. He kept every one in his
hockey card box, as he was currently saving up for a new Bob Maplesauce hockey
Jersey. The Jersey cost $40 and so far Joe had $6, so he was going to
have to lose a lot more teeth before he would be able to skate around in a
Sunland Golden Hammers' #63 jersey.

So all this talk about his Dad getting money was
strange. Very strange indeed. Joe was going to have to do a little
investigative work. A little bit of night-time investigation.

That evening, Joe rode his bike to the local coffee
shop and ordered 4 super strong, super large, super energy coffees. He
chugged 3 of them in the parking lot and sipped on the last one as he rode
home.

At home, he played it cool. He was wide awake,
but to trick his parents he yawned a lot, rubbed his eyes at just the right
time, and even complained a bit about not wanting to go to bed just to throw
them off his track. He brushed his pee and went teeth... I mean, he
brushed his teeth then went pee, and then he was off to bed. Oh wait; he
went pee one more time. That was a lot of coffee, remember?

Joe lay awake. He was curious of what he would
see. Maybe his dad had a deal with the Tooth Fairy. Maybe he did
some accounting work for her. Maybe he was helping her with her taxes.
There was a lot to think about for Joe. How could his dad possibly
be working for the Tooth Fairy?

It got so late that eventually Joe did fall asleep.
But the coffee had worked because around 2 in the morning Joe awoke to a
small "click". Joe stayed perfectly still, like a sleeping
statue, only moving his eyes around like little marbles in his head.

The "click" was the bedroom door opening.
A faded light slowly grew brighter and brighter as the door creaked open.
And there she was! Tooth Fairy floated in with her wings, hovering
no more than 2 feet above the floor.

She wasn't graceful, bouncing into the wall and
knocking over some stuffed bunnies and a plastic turtle with no face. She
seemed to be disorganized, like she was late for school. She had a bag
that hung around her waist and some sort of magical looking dust seemed to be
leaking out and onto the floor. She stooped down and tried to scoop up
what she could, but as she shoved it back into the bag some of it got in her
eye. She scratched it and then some got into her mouth. She spit it
and then some got into her nose. Then she sneezed and felt down onto the
floor. Out cold.

‘What on earth is happening?!’ thought Joe. It
must have been some sort of sleepy dust. She had accidentally put herself
to sleep!

Minutes went by until she finally woke up. She
floated back up into the air and dusted herself off, careful to hold her nose
while she did. Then she looked in Joe's direction. His eyes slammed
shut.

He could feel her warmth getting closer. She was
right next to him when he felt the warmth go under his pillow and snatch up the
tooth. Joe peaked to see her examining the tooth with a glass, just like
the one his dad had only much, much smaller.

Up close Joe could see that Tooth Fairy
was like a grandma. She must have been working at her job for a long time.
She must be tired, staying up so late, he thought.

Finally, she placed the tooth deep into
her pouch and at the same time pulled out a very small change purse. She
clicked open the clasp and pulled out a big, crisp 200 dollar bill! It
looked so big as she attempted to balance herself while holding it, which was
like a big piece of drywall for her. Yet she was able to roll it up and
placed it under Joe's pillow. She scribbled down some notes in a little
pad she had hanging from a string dangling from her neck, and dusted off her
hands.

Oh no!!!

Down she dropped, floating back like a
feather onto the floor. There must have been some magic dust still on her
hands! She's such a silly and forgetful Tooth Fairy, thought Joe.

Immediately, another sound could be heard
from the doorway. There was Joe's Dad, sneaking into the room dressed all
in black! He tip-toed across the room like a sneaky ninja, picked up the
Tooth Fairy by her legs, and started shaking her upside down! Coins, big
and small rained down onto the floor. His Dad could be heard giggling as
he continued to treat poor Tooth Fairy like a salt and pepper shaker.

Once the stream of coin clink sounds died
down, he placed the Tooth Fairy on a shelf and scooped up all of the coins on
the floor. He dug through them in his hands until he found a nice, shinny
Toonie. Then he switched it with the 200 dollar bill from under Joe's
pillow!

What a Skunky thing, thought Joe.
But he was too tired to say anything. Some of the dust must have
fallen onto his head during the robbery. Yes, robbery. That's what
it was, as far as Joe was concerned. His Dad had robbed the Tooth Fairy.
Took everything she had. And then he stole from Joe, too!

But wait! What was happening now?
As Joe's Dad was busy giggling and counting money in the middle of the
room, Joe could see that the Tooth Fairy had woken up. And she was not
happy!

She got up and fluttered herself above
Joe's Dad. She dusted him good, and he dropped like a pile of crumby
bricks. The money spilled everywhere. His head hit the toy shelf
and toys went everywhere! Stuffies, race cars, robots, and golden toy
stars crashed down onto the floor, and on top of a very unconscious, and a very
greedy Dad.

In all of the commotion, the cat walked in
and he must have thought that all of the magical dust on top of Joe's Dad was
actually litter box sand. He bounced up on top of him, peed, and then
flicked the dust onto Joe's Dad's face! Then the cat fell asleep!

Meanwhile, the Tooth Fairy had gathered
all of the coins up, and returned Joe's $200 under his pillow. And before
you could say 'Strawberry Fodder, A monkey's Got er',' she disappeared!

In all of that commotion, the dog strolled
in. He sniffed Joe's Dad, the sleeping cat, and must have thought that
the dust on them was some sort of fancy dog food, because he licked it, and
fell asleep!

So Joe's dad had a sleeping cat on his
neck, a sleeping dog on his legs, and yucky, sticky magic dust on his face!
Joe thought that that was a pretty good punishment for stealing.
What a bad Dad he was being.

Suddenly, Tooth Fairy had reappeared. She had brought another Fairy with her. This Fairy looked like a Doctor
Fairy because she had a stethoscope hanging from her neck and she was wearing a
lab coat with holes in the back of it so her wings could poke out. She
began taking Joe's Dad's vitals; checking his pulse, processing blood work, and
cleaning out the ear wax from his ears.

After writing down her notes, she suddenly
swooped down and into Joe's Dad's left ear! In she crawled until she
disappeared! Joe could see her travel further into his Dad's head because
her glow shone through his skin. When the glow reached the middle of his
head, his eyes opened. Joe couldn't hear anything, but Dr. Fairy must
have been speaking to him from inside his head. His face looked like
someone had him in a "stick up". He didn't dare make any false
moves.

"No ma'am." His dad
answered the voice in his head.

"Yes, I am very sorry. I am
most certainly not a good dad. Stealing from you and from Joe is wrong.
I will never do it again. I feel so much shame."

Now Joe could see tears in his eyes.

"Yes, I know. I know. He
is such a good boy. Yes, I will buy him his very own Sunland Golden
Hammers #63 Bob Maplesauce jersey." He whimpered.

"Ok, yes, I will put the money I
stole into an account for Joe's College fund and I will buy him ice cream
whenever he asks."

With that, the glow popped out of the left
ear. The 2 Fairy's looked over in Joe's direction, winked at him, and
then disappeared.

Joe didn't know what happened next because
all he could remember was waking up in his bed the next morning. He was
very tired. Leaning over he saw that the $200 was still there. The
rest of the room was empty. No dog, no cat, no fairies... and no Dad.
The shelf was fixed, the toys were in their right place. All seemed
well.

It was the smell of bacon that drew Joe
out of the room and into the kitchen.

And there he was; Joe's dad busy making
pancakes and bacon, pouring coffee for Joe's mom, and smiling away.

"Hey, little Joe! Good morning!
Can I get you some pancakes? How about some crispy bacon?"